Friday, November 06, 2009

Progress report

"Una Voce's report upon the second anniversary of Summorum Pontificum" (Rorate Caeli, November 5, 2009):
The Foederatio Internationalis Una Voce recently issued a progress report on the second anniversary of Pope Benedict XVI's motu proprio Summorum Pontificum. The full report extends to 95 pages. FIUV's executive president Leo Darroch personally presented a copy of the report to the Holy Father during a meeting in Rome on Wednesday, Oct. 28. (See FIUV's website for a report on and photographs from the meeting.)
Rorate Caeli provides excerpts from a 14-page abridgment of the report prepared by FIUV's executive president Leo Darroch.

Amidst reports that international interest in the Federation is growing, particularly in Latin America (with new associations being admitted from Mexico, Chile, Peru, and Columbia, and requests for help from Cuba and Honduras), one is not surprised to find that the good news is accompanied by challenges:
What is clear from these new reports is that there has been a mixed reception of Summorum Pontificum which includes a serious level of episcopal disapproval in many countries. The good will displayed by many bishops has been offset by concerted and continual attempts by many other bishops to thwart the will of the Holy Father....

Perhaps the greatest reason for the current crisis in the Church is that too many people in the Church, particularly in senior positions, no longer accept the authority of the Pope. Where there is dissent, and where personality and self-interest are uppermost, there is decay and lapsation. Where Christ and obedience are to the fore the traditional life of the Church is allowed to flourish unhindered and the spiritual life of the Church flourishes, parish life flourishes, priestly and religious vocations flourish, and the vitality of the faith flourishes....

Since the promulgation of Summorum Pontificum the signs, increasingly, are encouraging ....

The iron grip of Modernism is finally being loosened. It is a movement that has no past and no future. It is of the present, selfish and self-centred, with a blinkered vision that does not extend beyond the minds of its adherents. On the other hand, tradition has a secure foundation, a history, a present, and a future; a continuity....

In promulgating the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum the Holy Father has done a great service to the Church in the search for truth. In this respect the new publication, Vatican Council II: An Open Discussion, by Monsignor Brunero Gherardini, is a timely contribution to the debate. Monsignor Gherardini concludes his book by asking that the Supreme Pontiff,
“clarify definitively every aspect and contents of the last Council. Such omnia reparare [reparation of everything] could be accomplished through a great papal document, which would go down in history as a sign and witness of the vigilant and responsible exercise of His ministry as the Successor of Peter.”
95 pages. That's a lot more.

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